SACRAMENTO — Bradley Wiggins, the only person to win the Tour de France and an Olympic gold medal in the same year, has some nightmarish memories of racing in the Golden State.

One of the favorites to win the Amgen Tour of California that begins Sunday at the state Capitol recalled a miserable day six years ago along the Central Coast.

Wiggins and fellow cycling star Mark Cavendish rode for Team High Road in 2008.

“We had a horrendous time, it was February and we were both as fat as anything and we struggled,” Wiggins said. “I spent one of my worst days on a bike from some town somewhere to San Luis Obispo; it was 230K in the rain.”

Germany’s Jens Voigt, who has competed in every tour, interrupted the British cyclist.

“I was there,” Voigt said of the stage that started in Seaside.

“I know you were there,” Wiggins replied. “You’re everywhere.”

Then Wiggins returned to that rain-splattered day.

“Guys were retiring from the breakaway it was that cold, and I’ve never seen that in another bike race,” he said.

“Then I got sick, and retired. Cav won the stage and then got disqualified. So it was a horrendous race. It can’t get any worse than that, so I think we’re going to have a good week.”

The race travels 720 miles finishing next Sunday in Thousand Oaks.

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The tour is playing host to two days of women’s racing that begins Sunday with a circuit course around the Capitol. The race involving 20 teams will be held while the men complete a 120-mile stage that cruises through the Gold Country in the Sierra foothills.

On Monday, a select group will participate on the same individual time trial course in Folsom as the men.

The expansion of women’s participation in the tour is a big step for Jo Kiesanowski of Pescadero-based Team Tibco.

The three-time New Zealand Olympian is one of the stars of Tibco, which after a decade is the longest running women’s team in North America. While she has forged a living from racing, “for a majority of the peloton it’s difficult to make ends meet,” Kiesanowski said Saturday.

Some of the world’s top competitors complained last year about the dearth of racing in conjunction with the tour when only a handful were invited to a time trial in San Jose.

The two days in the spotlight gives teams a chance to show their sponsors — for Tibco, that includes Silicon Valley Bank — why the investment is worthwhile.

Kiesanowski hopes organizers someday will add a full women’s stage race to the tour. For now, she is excited about competing Sunday.

“It’s a typical four-corner American crit,” she said of the 1.25-mile criterium course.

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Dutch star Laurens ten Dam hopes to improve on his sixth-place finish at the 2011 Tour of California.

After that, the Belkin Pro Cycling leader wants to break into the top 10 in the Tour de France. He finished 13th last year, his best performance in five Tour appearances.

Ten Dam, 33, plans to train for a month in Lake Tahoe after the Tour of California ends.

“I heard they have the biggest trout in the U.S. in the lakes there,” he said.

Not that ten Dam is a serious fly fisher. The house he will rent has all the gear he needs. After that, he’s on the prowl for secret watering holes.

The Dutch rider decided to use Tahoe as a high-altitude camp for the Tour de France instead of his team’s regular Spanish location.

“In Spain, it’s just a high mountain,” he said Saturday. “There’s nothing to do.”

In the Tahoe region, ten Dam can “get a coffee in Truckee.” Or he can fish. But mainly, he plans to just “eat, sleep and focus.”

The cyclist is hoping to do well this week because Belkin International is a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of consumer electronics. In other words, the folks who pay the way will be watching closely in their back yard.

A long-awaited plan to keep the Raiders in Oakland was unveiled late Friday by city and Alameda County officials. In a news release issued late Friday afternoon, local officials touted the plan for a new $1.3 billion stadium and mixed-use development designed to keep the team at the Coliseum site. Raiders owner Mark Davis currently is pursuing a plan to...